Posted by LinkedIn® Marketing Expert Kristina Jaramillo

As a sales professional, entrepreneur or small business owner – how many times as this happened to you:

You are speaking with a prospective client and you think that everything is going well.  It seems like they are willing to work with you and hire you. But, when they ask about price – you inform them of the needed investment and they go silent.  They immediately start back peddling and state that your price is too high and you are out of their budget.

The Shocking Truth – 80% of the Time, The Problem Is Not The Price or the Budget!

The problem is you haven’t proven your value.

You haven’t shown that you are worth the investment.  You haven’t given your prospects a reason to adjust their budget and make you a priority.  You have to blow your prospects away with the value you can offer and the quality of business you can deliver. And, you do this by building a relationship with your prospects which will automatically help you overcome price shock.

LinkedIn is a relationship marketing tool that can help you get prospects to the point where they are no longer worried about price – they want your products and services no matter what.

How to Use LinkedIn to Overcome Your Prospects’ Price Objections

1. Keep your profile in front of your prospects’ faces

Once, you create a strong LinkedIn profile foundation using my Instant LinkedIn Marketing Templates at http://www.InstantLinkedInMarketingTemplates.com, you need to keep yourself on top of your prospects’ minds.  The best way to do this is to add applications to your profiles that showcase your talents and results.  Use SlideShare, Box.net and Google Presentations to add videos, PowerPoint Presentations, articles and case studies that prove your expertise.   This will give prospects opportunities to see what you offer and why you are the thought leader in your field as you build the relationship. This will help you prove your “worth” and “value” – on a regular basis. As you add new content to your website, your LinkedIn connections are instantly notified through LinkedIn status messages. Plus, you can invite your connections to view your profile and see the new content.

2. Build your own community

By creating your own LinkedIn group, you can regularly share your knowledge and keep your prospects who are not ready at this time to hire you engaged.  This way you continue to educate prospects and show them the value that you have to offer until they break down and say, “I’m ready to move forward.”

3. Regularly provide prospects articles and case studies that solve their specific problems

By regularly giving valuable information within your LinkedIn group that your prospects can learn from you will be able to prove you are worth your cost. However, you must be willing to set yourself apart with your articles, videos and discussions by offering information that no one else is giving. You need to show case studies that not only showcases the results you are getting for clients right now – but also why your clients need you and how you are different from your competitors who may be offering the same services at a lower cost. You need to show your uniqueness and how that uniqueness will help me, the prospect. And, lastly, you have to show that you can solve my specific problems and challenges.

Prove to your prospects that you understand their solutions – and that you are the “only” expert who can help them and they’ll invest in your products and services no matter the cost.

To help you with your article content, I recommend Eric Gruber’s 40 Instant Article Writing Templates Collection at: http://www.InstantArticleWritingTemplates.com

4.  Stay engaged, answer questions and position yourself as the “go-to” expert

Getting back to your LinkedIn group and community this is the best place to showcase your talent and provide your audience with answers to their questions.  Your group will give members another way to access your knowledge and expertise.  They will feel connected to you on a more personal relationship.  This will help them understand the prices you have because they will see the value in your work.

5. Create a Prospect Relationship Management System

Start off by segmenting your LinkedIn connections so you can provide them with customized information that is pertinent to their specific businesses. By providing “tailor-made” content to your followers on LinkedIn, you will enhance your relationship and prove that you are the expert for them.

You should also be mixing LinkedIn with CRM software like HighRiseHQ.com (the program we use with our clients) so you can keep track exactly when you have contacted your prospects last – and when you should contact them next. Remember, people buy from people they trust and have a relationship with – especially when there is a big investment.

By becoming proactive  with your LinkedIn marketing efforts where you are now building and nourishing relationships, you will overcome price and budget objections in the long-run. Failing to engage with prospects and clients to prove your “value” and worth is just one of the mistakes, I reveal in my Free Top 14 LinkedIn Marketing Mistakes Special Report.

Do you ever feel like your brand is out of alignment with your values system? Like you have to do things in your marketing that you wouldn’t want your mother or your mentor to see?

Building your brand is not easy. If your business or profession has a lot of competition, it is up to you to communicate effectively what is  unique to your brand that will make it stand out from the rest. Recently speaking at a conference for realtors, I asked a realtor what made her different from the others in the room.  Her answer, “We can all pretty much do the same thing.”

Customers will slip away just because they think you are the same as the others around or in your profession.   In order to find that unique identity, your niche, you have to know who your target market is. Knowing who your customers are will give you an idea of what works best for them. It will help you fine tune your message so you can even visualize that you are speaking directly to one specific person.  This will allow you to concentrate on one thing – that one thing that will give your brand an edge.

Define your brand

For your business to stand out, you have to create and define your brand. If you already have one and you think it’s time for some change, add something new to your menu or to your services. You want your customers to experience something new to them. So even if you’re just another business around town, you’ll be the first choice when they think about something that your business offers.

Here are a few things that you can do to avoid brand confusion:

Make your customers feel welcome – when a customer comes into your establishment, make them feel that they are welcome. This applies also to when they visit your online establishment or online social media pages.  This is your chance to make a lasting impression about your brand. When a customer feels that they are welcome from the time they enter your establishment up until they step out, they will definitely think of you again. Find ways you can uniquely make your customers feel welcome, something that is appropriate in your business. Take a risk and try new things!

Excellent customer service – no less. Without customers, our businesses are nothing. Always provide excellent customer service because this aspect is what makes the sale. If your customer feels that you are doing everything that is expected from you and more, they will feel that they are taken care of. Even if you charge a bit higher than the rest, you’ll be surprised at how much customers are willing to pay to experience excellent customer service. Take more initiative and ask them what they need before they approach and ask you.

Consistency – once you find your niche, you want to do it consistently. (For definition:  Niche is what you do so well and is uniquely you; Target Market is who you do it to or for).  Now that you’ve made a good impression, stay engaged with your connections. With every interaction, you are either building up your relationship or tearing it down.

Extras – because the little things add up. There are a lot of ways to give your customers an excellent experience. You can ask for and use their names when you’re serving them, adding a personal touch to the experience. You can also create a customer database and gather your customers’ contact details. With a database, you can send emails or cards to your customers for birthdays or holidays. You can send them information about new promos or the latest on your menu. Doing the little extras to make your customers feel that you appreciate them will not only set you apart from the others, but will give you a chance to gain loyal customers.

Now thrive!

Ending brand confusion is important if we want our business  or profession to survive and succeed. If we give our customers something great to differentiate our business from the rest and consistently provide that, we are positioning our brand at the top of their list. That’s why it’s important to keep innovating, to keep working on how our customers can add value and attach meaning to our personal brand and our business products and services.

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Maria Elena Duron, CEO (chief engagement officer), buzz2bucks | a word of mouth marketing firm, is skilled at making networks “work” and harnessing powerful online and offline buzz, she facilitates online visibility services and word of mouth coaching and workshops – taking companies and professionals from buzz-worthy to bucks-worthy.

Without a cohesive look and feel, and a consistent message, you don’t really have a brand – you have a bunch of stuff that you’ve wasted time and money designing, writing and putting together.

Consistency means that all of your materials look and sound alike. It means that you have the same logo on everything – and if you have more than one logo in your company (for example, for different products) that those logos go together. It also means that your colors, fonts, background colors, texture, patterns, and photos all match from piece-to-piece.

That way, your website winds up looking like it’s related to your business card. Your email newsletter resembles your PowerPoint template, and so on.

And your marketing messages are consistent – what you say in your website sounds like the stuff you send out in your newsletter. Your tagline is the same across all of your materials.

This consistency creates a professional appearance, makes your business look established and gives your business credibility.

When everything matches everything else, your clients can see that you’re paying attention to the details in your brand. Everything looks classier, and you send the impression that you know what you’re doing.

You set up all of the consistent elements of your brand in your brand plan – and then all you have to do is refer back to the plan when you’re creating new materials.

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Erin Ferree is a brand strategist and designer.

She works with small businesses to create brands with substance and style that fit their businesses perfectly. She’s designed brands for hundreds of small business owners that attract their ideal clients, outshine their competition and make them unforgettable.

Erin lives, cooks and plays tug-of-war with her dog in San Luis Obispo, California.

Visit Erin at: www.brandstyledesign.com

A brand plan makes developing your brand easy. You know exactly what your brand is all about, so you can talk and write about it with ease.

Imagine – no more grueling copywriting sessions, because the words just flow from your brand plan.

Your designs look amazing, because they were created according to your plan. They’re effective, because they are brimming with the meaning and emotion behind your brand, and designed to show your ideal clients what you’re all about. You get compliments on them and you’re proud to have people see them!

You have all of the pieces you need to market your business every step of the way.  There’s nothing worse than having an opportunity pass you by because you didn’t have the marketing material to take advantage of it. With a brand plan, you get to look into the future of your business to figure out what you need, when you need it and what it will take to make it happen.

Your designs get personalized rules and templates created just for your business that you use to create additional materials as your business grows and evolves. Every piece you design gets easier because you know what it’s supposed to look like. And, since they all match, you get the power of repetition on your side – repeating similar designs throughout your brand will make you look like a serious business and will help your clients remember you.

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Erin Ferree is a brand strategist and designer.

She works with small businesses to create brands with substance and style that fit their businesses perfectly. She’s designed brands for hundreds of small business owners that attract their ideal clients, outshine their competition and make them unforgettable.

Erin lives, cooks and plays tug-of-war with her dog in San Luis Obispo, California.

Visit Erin at: www.brandstyledesign.com

I went on a road trip with a friend recently, and even though I was “on vacation”, branding lessons kept jumping out at me. Here are the 3 most valuable lessons we learned about branding on our summer vacation:

1. The first lesson is about using your headshot in your marketing.

At Mount Rushmore,  we overheard a little boy talking to his mom: “Those guys on the outside are on money. But who are the other two?”

Of course, he recognized Washington and Lincoln. Their faces are everywhere – and in his experience, they’re the ones on the money that he probably sees most often.  More importantly, their faces are shown on the one- and five-dollar bills in a similar pose – so they’re recognizable.

Poor Jefferson and Roosevelt! He couldn’t recognize them because they appear most commonly in profile – on the nickel and dime. When he saw their full face, it didn’t look like the same guy. And, Jefferson does appear on the $2 bill – but that bill is pretty obscure. The kid hadn’t seen those often enough to be able to remember who Jefferson was.

The lesson here? Using a recognizable photo consistently in your brand makes you more memorable. And, being memorable is good for business! Make sure that you use your photo often in your brand, and that you choose a photo that looks like you do in real life!

2. Consistency and repetition stirs curiosity, creates familiarity, heightens suspense, strengthens hunger and desire and inspires loyalty.

And, this works even if the exact same thing isn’t repeated over and over again.  For several hundred miles on Interstate 90, there are billboards making all sorts of claims, like:

• “Free Ice Water: Wall Drug”
• “Don’t Miss Out: Wall Drug”
• “Western Art Treasures: Wall Drug”
• “Dinosaurs! Wall Drug”
• “Homemade Donuts: Wall Drug”

I would say, “You get the picture”… but the truth is, you can’t. I could fill pages and pages with all of the messages from all of the billboards. There were literally hundreds of them, stretching over hundreds of miles. And every one repeated the simple phrase, “Wall Drug”.

This is what happened:

• After the first few billboards, we were curious. I got out my phone and Googled “Wall Drug” just to see what they were talking about.
• After a few more signs, we felt familiar with Wall Drug. After all, we’d seen about a dozen signs on top of Googling it. We were experts, and we liked feeling like we knew what the signs were all about.
• With every passing sign the suspense grew. We wondered… are we there yet? How much further?
• After a while, the signs awakened our hunger and desire (I’ll also admit that this was right around the time we started seeing the signs about the donuts). We found ourselves really wanting to go to Wall Drug.
• We went out of our way to go to Wall Drug. The signs had inspired our loyalty and we passed up opportunities to stop at more convenient places so that we could see what all the fuss was about!

Imagine if your brand could get all of those results from a bit of consistency and repetition! Best of all, consistency and repetition in your brand is easy – it just means that you have to use the same messages and designs that you’ve already created again and again. So there’s no new work for you.

3. Using whitespace makes you stand out, and makes your audience stop and really notice.

During our trip, the scenery was really quite green. Green corn. Green fields. Green forests.

Until we reached the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. Suddenly, there was a whole lot of white out the window!

That white made the salt flats one of the most remarkable and stunning places we saw on our trip.They really stood out because they were so different from the green, green, green we had been seeing for days.

It made us stop the car and spend some time there relaxing and looking at the scenery – instead of just whizzing by, we really paid attention. Wouldn’t you like your audience to stop and spend more time paying attention to and noticing you?

See how you can incorporate more white space in your brand so that you won’t look like everyone else, trying to cram everything onto a page. It will make your designs look different from everyone else’s and make your clients stop and really look at what you have to offer!

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Erin Ferree is a brand strategist and designer.

She works with small businesses to create brands with substance and style that fit their businesses perfectly. She’s designed brands for hundreds of small business owners that attract their ideal clients, outshine their competition and make them unforgettable.

Erin lives, cooks and plays tug-of-war with her dog in San Luis Obispo, California.

Visit Erin at: www.brandstyledesign.com

By: Todd Bates

As people grow in their business and careers they tend to seek professionals help with various tasks. No one can make it on the road to success in business by themselves. Whether your goal is $100,000 or $100 million you will need the expertise of others to help you get to the next level.

For many entrepreneurs, the challenge of selecting the right people is what prevents them from achieving success. Generally the process to select professional help is merely based on referrals from a trusted friend or advisor.

While trusted referrals are a sufficient short term solution, it won’t necessarily give you the RIGHT person to catapult your business to the next level. Your friend might be well intentioned, but what works for them may not be in line with your specific business goals.

For example, let’s take the process of finding an accountant.

The right accountant will keep you on the path of wealth building while the wrong one lead you down a path of startling IRS notifications. Most often people choose their accountant too quickly and without asking the right questions.

When interviewing a prospective accountant most people ask questions such as:

• How long have you been in business?
• How many clients do you help each year?
• How much are your fees?

While these questions are practical, in reality they won’t reveal the big picture or determine if the candidate is the right match for you. Comparatively, a question like, how much money do you make each year? digs deep on whether or not the applicant can truly help you.

It’s a telling question.

You certainly don’t want an accountant to help you who makes less than you. Even more, you don’t want an accountant who struggles on their own bills!
The phrase “do as I say, not as I do” is not one that you want in an accountant (or any professional you hire for that matter).

When it comes to hiring a professional you want someone who can help you reach higher in your goals, not keep you maintaining the status quo.

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As a Colorado native, Todd Bates played professional soccer while attending Colorado State. Todd Bates has been an entrepreneur from the day he graduated from college.

As a pioneer in the marketing field Todd has created 47 different companies that have helped small businesses put strategies into action that quickly increase their sales.
He is well known for his ability to get attendees to overcome their fears to take their business to the next level. Specializing in direct response marketing, sales conversion methods, and social marketing strategies, Todd has a passion for helping individuals and business improve their bottom line.

Click here to discover how you can build your wealth through marketing systems that won’t rely on you to succeed.

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What do YOU think about this post? Do you agree or disagree???

If the next person who visited your website could only do one thing there, what would you want that thing to be?
Having one main thing for your visitor to do on your website is a powerful strategy that will help you get better results for whatever’s most important on your website.

It’s easier for you to do “One Thing” well.

Trying to write copy, design a marketing strategy and create a business strategy around way too many things is a lot of work – and if you’re doing too many things, you can’t do any of them as well as they need to be done.

It’s easier to get your visitor to do “One Thing”. If you’re offering one clear choice of what to do next, then your visitor can see what they’re supposed to do, how to do it, and make just one decision – instead of deciding between too many things.

It’s easier to get people to talk about  “One Thing”. You want people to help you spread the word about what you’re doing, right? Giving them one clear thing to talk about can help get the word out farther, faster and to make sure the message that’s going out from all of the people who are talking about you is consistent and clear.

And, focusing on one thing doesn’t mean that they’ll only do  “One Thing” with you. It simply gives them a starting point. You can still offer many things, and serve people in many ways – but you just don’t confuse or overwhelm them with that up-front.

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Erin Ferree is a brand strategist and designer.

She works with small businesses to create brands with substance and style that fit their businesses perfectly. She’s designed brands for hundreds of small business owners that attract their ideal clients, outshine their competition and make them unforgettable.

Erin lives, cooks and plays tug-of-war with her dog in San Luis Obispo, California.

Visit Erin at: www.brandstyledesign.com

Are you failing to give yourself a specific label on LinkedIn? And, notice the word “specific.”

You want to focus your LinkedIn marketing efforts on one and only one topic and you want to show prospects, clients, possible referral sources and the media that you are the master in your topic.

By giving yourself a label on LinkedIn, you’ll get better connections.

Think of it this way…If you were having heart problems and needed heart surgery, would you go to a heart specialist or a general surgeon? Same thing on LinkedIn – business professionals want to do more business with specialists than a generalist.

That’s why I label myself as a LinkedIn marketing expert and not a social media expert.

When people need help with their LinkedIn marketing, I want them to think of me. When they need help turning their LinkedIn profile into a marketing tool – I want them to come to me. When the media needs to quote a LinkedIn marketing expert, I want them to come to me. And, guess what – because I position myself as a specialist, I have higher perceived value than a regular social media expert who dibbles and dabbles on every social network.

You see, you want to niche yourself on several levels:

• By topic
• By audience
• By industry
• By level
• By method
• By media

Watch this video to see how a psychotherapist and a consultant fails to label themselves – plus view an example to model:

http://bit.ly/uJOrC2

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“Kristina Jaramillo’s Get LinkedIn Help Newsletter”, a free ezine featuring tips, tricks, tools, news, developments and trends that will help you build unlimited, profitable relationships on LinkedIn.

Now, you can get her free special report that reveals the Top 14 LinkedIn Mistakes That Most Businesses and Internet Marketers Make – And the Opportunities They Are Missing. To get this free report, go to: http://www.GetLinkedInHelp.com

Do you ever feel like instead of moving forward with your brand and your business, you’re stuck you’re going around and around in circles with your confusing brand?

That your brand doesn’t communicate, doesn’t convert sales and is a bit of a mess?

What if I could show you how to easily get unstuck and create a brand that works? One that helps you get more clients, make sales and makes your business profitable.

The first step in creating a brand that converts is to get clear. Without clarity, your brand is going to be confusing and too complex for your ideal clients to really understand what you offer. And, without clarity, your marketing and promotion – and, even just telling other people what you do – will be way too hard.

Let’s look at the first baby steps towards getting more clear:

1. What part of your brand are you unclear about? Your brand has several distinct parts: your message, your value, your differentiation, your personality and your service offering. Your brand also has to communicate clearly to your ideal client, so you have to know who they are and what they want. Which parts of your brand are you unclear about?
2. How is your lack of clarity showing up? Lack of clarity can show up in several ways: by being confusing, by saying too much and making your brand complex, by being too professional, by not choosing a specific ideal client to work with and by changing too often, so that your clients feel like they’re not sure what you’re doing. Which of these shows up in your unclear brand?
3. How can you start changing that? You’ve identified which part (or parts) of your brand you’re unclear about, and how your lack of clarity is showing up. Pay close attention to the areas you’ve identified, and notice as you see your lack of clarity come through in your marketing and conversations. As you go along, also note when you do feel clear in those areas – or when you’re having a chat with an ideal client and they are understanding you well. Use those improvements in your brand to make “baby steps” towards your clarity.

Even if you get 5% more clear in your brand, you’ll have made progress in the right direction… and you can keep using these tools to make more improvements and getting more clear as time goes on.

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Erin Ferree is a brand strategist and designer.

She works with small businesses to create brands with substance and style that fit their businesses perfectly. She’s designed brands for hundreds of small business owners that attract their ideal clients, outshine their competition and make them unforgettable.

Erin lives, cooks and plays tug-of-war with her dog in San Luis Obispo, California.

Visit Erin at: www.brandstyledesign.com